


Broken Rules

by adarkwintersday



Series: Hide Those Ears [10]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s03e21 Requiem For Methuselah, Memory Alteration, Mind Meld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:15:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adarkwintersday/pseuds/adarkwintersday
Summary: The things that love can drive a man (or a Vulcan) to.





	Broken Rules

Jim figures it out for himself.

 

It’s fairly obvious, as it turns out.  

 

When Spock first becomes his lover they don’t mind-meld much.  Spock is a little wary of the whole business.  Like his superior physical strength, his telepathic ability is something he keeps guarded.  Occasionally either, or both, will spill out in the heat of the moment.  Jim sometimes feels Spock’s hunger pouring into his mind - just as he sometimes finds himself unexpectedly pinned to the bed.  In either event, Spock will later be alarmed, and apologetic - and Jim will have to use all of his (immense) persuasive powers to reassure him.  ‘You’re never going to harm me.  You’re not capable of it, Spock.  And besides, my love - I _like_ it.’  

 

More often than that, like feather-light morning kisses, Spock's consciousness will graze the surface of Jim's thoughts.  But that's as far as it goes. 

 

It’s Jim who pushes at the boundaries.  He’s never forgotten Amerind.  Being reminded of who he was by the touch of Spock’s mind.  Being _intimate_ , in a way that is difficult to describe.

 

‘A mind meld,’ says Spock, frowning slightly, ‘is not necessarily like that.  You will recall the affair with the Melkotians - ’

‘ _Spectres without body_ ,’ says the Captain automatically. 

And Spock looks disturbed.  

 

‘But on Amerind,’ Jim says, coming back to the subject a few days later, ‘you weren’t trying to alter my perception of reality.  You just gave me back my self.’

‘Captain, I - ’

‘ _Jim_.’

‘Jim.  My intention at that time was to remove the barrier between your conscious mind and your episodic memory.  However, that is not what occurred.’

‘What did happen?’

Again, the disturbed look.  ‘You _recognised_ me,’ says Spock.

 

The matter is left unsettled until they have what is, essentially, their first lovers' quarrel.  The _Enterprise_ has been co-opted into transporting delegates to a diplomatic conference on Tellar.  Jim’s least favourite kind of mission - and it becomes even more so when one of their passengers proves to be much, _much_ too comfortable around Spock.  When challenged, Spock quietly explains that several years ago he and special envoy Theleva had a certain _arrangement._ The Andorian is provokingly lovely, with flawless blue skin, and slender limbs…and Jim finds it unexpectedly difficult to be grown-up.  It’s at the end of a long, tiring, fractious day that Spock rests his hand against Jim’s face, and _shows_.

 

Shows how _the Captain_ is the sun.  How he bends space, so that everything else falls into him.  How he burns, the brightest of stars, at the centre of Spock’s universe.  How without him there is only darkness.

 

It’s strange, and dizzying, and it almost _hurts_ \- but Jim does everything he can to give as good as he gets.  The whole thing leaves them both shaken, and needing, and translates into a lot of pretty violent sex.  

 

They mind-meld quite a lot after that.

 

~

 

They’ve been lovers for about six months when Bones says something, in passing, about Holberg 917G.  Jim is just about to change the subject, quite automatically.  And then something clicks.

 

It’s like entering a room, and knowing that someone you love has just left.  Some lingering presence.  The ghost of his touch.

 

Jim spends the rest of the day trying to  _think about_ what happened on that planet.

 

And finds that he cannot.

 

~

 

‘Spock?’

‘Yes, Captain?’

‘You remember that mission to secure ryetalyn from the Omega system?’

‘Of course, Captain.’

‘It was only nine months ago, wasn’t it?’

‘Eight months and sixteen days.’

‘So why don’t I?  _Remember_ it?’

 

His lover stands quite still, and is entirely silent.

 

~

 

For a few days they don’t really speak.

 

They still make love.  Furiously, and silently.  Jim throws all his frustration, and longing, and confusion into the sex.  And Spock accepts.  Like a starving man, Spock _takes_.

 

Finally, on the third night, when they are lying in a sweat-soaked tangle, in the Captain’s quarters, with the lights turned off, Spock starts to talk.

 

‘You were greatly distressed.  You blamed yourself.’

The sweat on Jim’s back turns cold.

‘For what?’

‘For her death.’

‘Whose?’

‘The girl’s.’

 

In the darkness, Jim takes Spock’s right hand in his.

 

‘Spock,’ he says.  ‘I need you to give it back.’

 

~

 

It _burns_.

 

Sealed off in some dark part of his mind (or Spock’s?) the memory hasn’t faded.  The guilt still corrodes his soul like acid.   He acted like a fool, and worse - a _brute_.  Fought Flint for the girl, in a haze of infatuated rage - and between them they tore her apart.

 

She _died_ , and it’s all his fault.

 

Spock’s hand falls away from his face, and Jim slumps back against the wall, and opens his eyes.

 

‘ _Jesus_ , Spock.  Why did you - you _shouldn’t_ \- ’

His lover’s eyes are anguished.

‘You wanted to forget.’

 

He had, of course.  That’s what he’d said.  He’d craved oblivion.  Some respite from the turmoil in his head.  But he hadn’t meant - 

 

‘Spock.  _Christ_.’

‘Captain, I understand that it was wrong of me.  I was not thinking rationally.  But - ’

‘Spock, I just.  I can’t.  Right now, I can’t think about this straight.’

 

Spock is silent.  After a moment Jim drops his head into his arms.  And, seconds later, he hears the doors swish softly open and shut.

 

~

 

Sick with self-loathing, Jim explores his new-found memory in masochistic detail.  The whole horrible day, minute by minute.

 

And notices what, back at the time, he hadn’t.  That Spock had seen the impending crisis.  That Spock had tried to _stop_ it.  Every inch of the way, Spock was trying to protect and warn him.  

 

Did Spock take the memory away, Jim wonders, because he felt responsible for it?

 

He knows that Spock has spent the past three years doing everything he can to protect his Captain from the myriad perils of outer space.  

 

But when did he start trying to protect Jim from _himself_?

 

~

 

When the Captain comes to his quarters, he looks neither angry nor distraught.  Serious, yes, but nothing like he looked _that_ evening - after the girl’s death.  And relief soothes, a little, the pain in Spock’s chest.  Nevertheless, heart racing (two hundred and ninety-six beats per minute, he distractedly notes), he waits in silence.  

 

The Captain sighs.  Crosses the room, and rests his hands on Spock’s shoulders, and looks directly into his eyes.  

‘That was the only time?  You haven’t taken anything else?’

‘Never, Captain _._ ’

It is a logical question to ask.  And yet, illogically, Spock is shocked.

But the Captain nods.  Believing him, as he always does.  

‘I wasn’t in love with her,’ he says.  ‘You understand that?’

Spock had thought he already did.  Even humans can’t fall in love in a matter of hours.  He is startled, therefore, by the sudden lightening of his heart.  Deducing something rationally, it seems, is not the same as _knowing_ it.  Mutely, he nods.

And gets a smile.  ‘For one thing - it’s not possible, is it, to be in love with more than one person at once?’

 _Forgiveness_ , Spock understands, with an unexpected rush of happiness.  And refrains from telling the Captain that of course it is, or that his reasoning is unsound.  

Instead he waits, and the Captain goes on.

‘Spock.  Even with the mind-melds, I’m never going to understand everything that goes on in that incredible brain of yours.  But you have to allow me to make my own mistakes.  And to learn from them.  You can save me from deadly plants, and alternative dimensions, and impending asteroids.  But you can’t protect me from ever being wrong.’

 

~

 

After that they kiss and make up.

 

But Spock…

 

Spock never tampers with Jim’s memories again.  Or not (the frontiers of space throw up all kinds of strange necessities) without consent.

 

But he will never learn any logical limits, when it comes to protecting the Captain from his own impulsive heart.

 

Let alone from the many dangers of a perilous universe.  


End file.
